Apple Goes Bigger into Repair! Small Business Will Suffer.

Be very, very quiet Apple is hunting repair shops!

As reported by MacRumors, 9TO5Mac and TECHTIMES the mighty Apple appears to be admitting that they can't handle all the device repairs that come into their stores and occur on a daily basis. They have opened more repairs to their Apple Authorized Service Provider Program that includes cracked iPhone screens. In other words, 3rd Party repair shops, there is a new competitor in town and they have hundreds of locations across the country. Surprise!

Most of these places are not name brand shops (MBS, Inc, Sunrise Computers, etc.) but a lot of Best Buy locations are included and Simply Mac which has 72 stores nationwide. So now when you go on Apple's Support site and choose "Bring in for Repair" it will show customers these new locations and allow them to book an appointment online. Although it looks like they are still strained with the huge number of broken devices they need to service because, of the 20 locations it offered me to "Bring in for Repair", the most convenient location for me can't fit me in until 6 days from now in the evening (5:10 PM) or I can go to a Best Buy (which I hate) at 3PM that same 6 days away.

My friend Dustin Jones over at Harvest Cellular has offered his opinion on the issue and why Apple has opened up this new channel to repair their devices on his blog, saying "Apple loves the PR exposure when customers create huge lines to ensure they get a newly released product but lines of customers trying to resolve two major manufacture defects are the last thing they want in the news."

So, my question is WHY won't you work with 3rd party repair shops Apple? And WHY do you continue to hurt small business with your policies? Yep, I said it. Apple has a long history of hurting small innovative businesses. When they launched the iPhone with AT&T they wouldn't let the small businesses that were the backbone of the AT&T dealer network sell the iPhone which caused many of them to either sellout to larger dealers of shut down operations all together.

Now with repair it's the exact same thing. Thousands of hardworking innovative business people have opened repair shops all over the country and established a $4 billion industry for handset repair and you refuse to work with them Apple. Why is that? Do you not care about supporting small business Apple? Have you gotten so big and powerful you can't remember what it was like to be a startup trying to change the world? Is it not enough for you to dominate the smartphone market you now need to dominate the repair market as well??!!

We in the repair industry can help you. We want to help! In fact, I know a lot of people in the repair industry who love your product (sorry I'm not one). Don't you get it Apple, if you were to partner with 3rd party repair shops it could only boost your sales to even higher levels. But instead your partner with ICE to raid shops and distributors. You don't allow anyone to become part of your Apple Authorized Service Provider Program (still waiting to hear back from you on my application form 10 years ago, that you told me you would let me know when you started accepting new partners).

So, Apple, hears the deal, the 3rd party repair industry is made up mainly of small businesses across this great country of ours. Lots of cool people who have a passion for fixing things and helping people even when others tell them it can't be fixed. I can tell you all kinds of cool stories about customers who actually hugged my techs and wept when we were able to recover photos of a lost family member or the business person who was able to close a big deal because we were able to fix his iPhone before his big meeting. I hear the same inspiring stories when I talk to others in the repair industry time after time.

So why not give us a chance Apple? Why not create a program to work with reputable 3rd party repair shops? I know there are a lot of disreputable shops but we can figure this out. Don't you think it would be better if you had a program in place that could show YOUR customers who is and who is not a good company to work with for repair? Cause they're gonna shop around. That's just human nature.

Apple please don't destroy all the reputable family owned repair shops in this country who just want to try and make a living fixing your product. Repair is a big pie and people want to fix their stuff. Let's work together and, Make America Repaired Again!